Eat a rainbow

This is a phrase I’ve often used over the years and have, in the past, created a rainbow poster from tiny magazine fruit and vegs pictures and even a massive version, on a sheet spread over the school hall floor, with the real thing! But we found it increasingly difficult to eat our rainbow during lockdown. Richard took on the role of “hunter-gatherer” for us and a neighbour but struggled with the sheer volume when required to put all the goods on the belt before the nice lady could begin to scan all the shopping. My solution was to take on the acquisition of our fruit & vegs. We are lucky to have 2 greengrocers in the town so I went to the larger one first. The variety on offer was enormous – they even had the elusive lemon curd as well as eggs, milk and flour. But as all their goods are in full sun for most of the day my choices quickly deteriorated and I felt I needed to make two visits each week . So I tried the smaller shop and sadly that wasn’t much better, not least because of the pigeons wandering round eating the spilled seed. The final solution was for Richard to shop twice a week until restrictions were eased and our neighbour felt ready to enjoy the delights of impulse buys and her own choices. Thankfully our garden began to produce lovely lettuces and pea shoots as well as asparagus, potatoes and lots more. Richard is still doing our shopping and this week I found I had an accidental surplus of peppers so dug deeply to find an obscure dish from the past – pepperonata. So here’s a bonus recipe for you; slice and gently fry an onion with 2 crushed garlic cloves ,in olive oil and butter until soft, add 4 or 5 sliced deseeded peppers, red, orange and/or yellow and cook them gently for 10 minutes. Add 5 tomatoes, cut in half. Put a lid on and simmer for 20 mins, remove tomato skins as they start to peel off. Salt and pepper, taste and your done. Great served hot, but I like it better cold. Keeps in the fridge for several days (unless you do a “Nigella” and steal spoons of the stuff when you open the fridge anytime!) Helps with your rainbow…….let me know if you try this one xx